@pfaffman and @LiveLikeLastDay good work getting it running on azure. 
I’ve installed discourse several times on azure and it works great. Just wanted to say that yes they can have expensive Linux VM hosting (A1 v2 2GB is $26.79+/month) compared to digital ocean, but if you apply for their BizSpark program you can get 2-3 years worth of $150/month in Azure credits 
so it might actually be the cheapest hosting solution.